It’s about that time again, folks! Book 3 of The Wasteland Chronicles, Evolution, is pretty much done, barring a few minor details. Here is the very awesome cover done by the series artist, Luke Atkinson! And yes, those are dragons!

Expect the book to drop on 8/8/2013, available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple, and Kobo! I am getting PUMPED!

I’ve been very tired lately – and busy too, I guess. I finally reached the point in my novella that I’ve been waiting for. The apocalypse team is on the road again, saying goodbye to raider town. It took near twenty thousand words for them to get there, about twice as many as I expected. How much of that stays remains to be seen when I go back over it.

Already they’re running into a lot of trouble on the road. They’ve already downed a giant, zombified, troll-like thing and there’s a lot worse waiting ahead of them.

If I stick to my 40,000 word goal, then I guess I would be halfway done with the first draft. Only…this one might go even longer. It’s always hard to tell. If it does end up being very long, I might decide to split it into two books – but it would have to go 25,000 to 30,000 words over my goal for me to decide to do that. The upside of that would be is you wouldn’t have to wait three months for the sequel to come out.

I’m just anxiously waiting for the paperback copy to be ready so I can start doing giveaways. I just can’t wait until book two is finally out and the cover art is done and all that jazz.

Oh yeah, I turned 25 yesterday. I think in my high school/college days, my imagination pictured me already having six wildly successful books by now. I’m just now realizing the amount of work is required, and I’m just now starting to take to it. In the past two months and a half, I’ve definitely done more writing-wise than at any other time of my life. I have focus like I never have before, which is great. I’d like to think it’s something special I did, but we all know it’s probably just coffee. I just wished I had learned all these things two years ago, instead of now, when the e-book market was smaller and it was a bit easier to get established. But I still think there is plenty of room for someone who is talented and is willing to put in the work…and hopefully I am both of those things.

1. Today I wrote about 6-7,000 thousand words to complete my novella. Total of about 39,000 words.

I have no idea whether or not it’s good. I guess I’ll find out when I read it over again and see what needs to be fixed.

I have never written a book as fast as I’ve written this one. In a few days, I’m going to go back and start the editing.

2. I’ve heard back from 10 blogs that want to review Night of the Necromancer. I have 10 reviews (some slotted for February/March, 2-3 interviews, and a couple of giveaways is pretty good. It’s only been a couple days, so I may hear back from more. It is amazing to think that 10 blogs will be reviewing my book, some of them overseas. It’s pretty mind blowing, and awesome. These book bloggers are amazing people.

3. Even though it feels like I did a lot today, it still felt slow for some reason. I still need to go through Apocalypse and make sure the changes my professor suggested get implemented throughout. After that, promotion time…and the working on a physical copy with my illustrator, Luke Atkinson.

4. I also need to redo the print version of Night of the Necromancer to keep it updated with the online version. That’s a project for another day, but Apocalypse 2.0 needs to get done. That is the priority number one.

As I sit down to do writing stuff, or even book promotion, I really wish it were my full time job. I’ll get there, someday.

5. Speaking of, I got a call from Hobby Lobby. Pending I pass a drug test , I should be starting in the warehouse moving boxes and suchlike things. I’m glad to have a job again. In total, I’ve only been without for a week. I feel incredibly lucky that this worked out. I’m a bad interviewee because I’ll get nervous and talk fast, but I just have to sit through and deal with it. I’m just glad it went alright. Also, my good friend Jon gave me an amazing reference. It just might have clinched the deal.

5. I appeared on a podcast. I listened to The Storyboarders while at work, but since I probably won’t be able to listen to my iPod anymore at work, I’ll have find another time for it. I appear on Episode 13. I talk a little bit about working on Night of the Necromancer with Jelani, as well as a bit about self-promotion, the journey I’ve been learning for the past few weeks or so.

6. Things are good. I’m occupied every moment in something I really enjoy. Starting next week, I’ll most likely be starting my new job.

Anyway, that’s all for now. I’m sleepy so sorry if there are weird wording things. It’s been a lot of writing today.